The real goal of this blog entry is to share my personal experience with green passport renewal at DFA while giving my readers some idea of what to expect as they go through the process. But since I feel too exhausted to provide complete details at the moment, I will write about my most notable experiences for now and update with the rest of the information later. 
Early this morning (January 27, 2012) we went to DFA to have my green passport renewed into what we call ePassport or biometric passport. It was a tiring day, only BECAUSE we went to Mall of Asia afterwards to shop for numerous things we need… at 10AM! 
We had many things to shop for and so took advantage of the time since we were granted the day off from work and were right there, near a huge mall. The passport renewal application was done nearly 8:38 AM. So, more or less one and a half hour. My appointment was at 7:30AM, by the way. And yep, the person who kept me company didn’t have an appointment and had to wait somewhere else for me, playing DS. It’s a very nice person who’s simply helping someone who gets lost very easily. 
I got to the new DFA office by taking a shuttle/jeep near the exit of LRT-1 EDSA station. It dropped us off a road across DFA.
No queue number was distributed for the Processing Area / Document Verification area, and the monitors were turned off. We just sat in chairs as a queue. My guess is that they decided to do so in attempt to save power since there were only few applicants present anyway this morning. Or simply broken.
Cashier only needed the payment slip given by document verification area plus the cash payment. I paid 950 pesos for regular processing and the cashier handed a receipt over.
I read how someone wearing clear contact lens was forced to take it off before getting her photo taken at the Encoding Section. So I prepared my eyeglasses, contact lens solution and its case… but didn’t get a chance to use any! The staff at the encoding section did asked me if I was wearing contact lens, and I told him the truth – I was wearing contact lens, but CLEAR ones, and he simply gave me a nod after staring at me for a second. I felt so relieved because I always get headaches when wearing eyeglasses, but also bad for the others who were forced to take their *clear* lenses off. Unfair, I know.
My present haircut has bangs, and the man who was taking my photo told me my brows should be visible. Good thing I brought hair wax to sweep the bangs away from my eye brows. It gave me a slightly sticky hair throughout the day, but meh, doesn’t matter. After my business with him he told me it’s the last step and that I may already go to Mall of Asia. He read my mind! hehe.
The section for delivery service is behind the encoding section, to the left. DFA is far from my house and I hate queues, so I paid 120 pesos for such service. LBC is in charge of it.
Then off I went to the EXIT! Me and my companion chatted until 9:30 and went to MoA to shop for personal necessities and some home appliances. We haven’t done so in a long time and it was a perfect opportunity since we were out near MoA.
I’ll update this blog entry when I am rested and have the time. It should be more informative than this one.
